Marquis de Sade

Friday, May 27, 2011

Following in the tradition of such works as Peter Weiss' play, Marat Sade," the film "Salo - or 120 Days of Sodom" by Pier Paolo Pasolini, the film "Quills" by Philip Kaufman, and "Madame Sade" by Yukio Mishima, "Sade and Sisters,” a full-length play on the life of the Divine Marquis de Sade, serves up a spicy tale based on the life of the notorious French philosopher.

The Marquis de Sade, whose name inspired the term “sadism,” was imprisoned in pre-revolutionary France as much for his atheism as for his cruelty. Modern historians and philosophers have been re-appraising Sade’s wicked reputation and reputation for perversion, asserting his role as a philosopher whose worldly views were ahead of his time with regard to assertion of the self and the will to power.

Author Clair LaVaye explores the complex relationship of Sade with his wife and her younger sister. Both women shared his bed; each had a role to play in his sexual obsessions. Perhaps these two women inspired his two greatest novels, "Justine" and "Juliette.”

The play follows the life of young Sade as he contemplates an unwelcome marriage to Renée-Pélagie de Montreuil, the eldest sister of the Montreuil family. The second act examines the crucial period of Sade's life, when he lived at the Sade family castle in Provencal France with both Renée and her younger sister, Anne. The third act takes place just prior to Sade's removal from the Bastille, before the liberation of France. As his imagination sets sail, Sade receives visitors from out of time. Simone de Beauvoir , the Comte de Lautréamont and his creature, Maldoror, and Jack the Ripper discourse with Sade and his fictional heroines, Justine and Juliette, on the nature of good and evil...and what freedom without limits means for individuals and society.

Employing techniques used by the philosopher who inspired this play, author Clair LaVaye creates perverse and transgressive erotic scenes to surround the poisonous, delirious Sadean ideas.

A warning from the author: the philosophy is poisonous, so beware, innocent eyes, lest you fall into damnation!!

A good item for Marquis de Sade collectors who enjoyed Peter Weiss’s “Marat/Sade” and Mishima’s “Madame de Sade.” "Sade and Sisters" explores the interior of Sade's heart and the hearts of those he loved.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

“Bastille Dreams” explores the conflict of freedom and ethics in an erotic fantasy of a night in the Bastille with the Marquis de Sade.

In "Bastille Dreams," Sade is visited in his Bastille cell by Simone de Beauvoir and Jack the Ripper, who question him about the limits of man's freedom. Sade's companions and sister muses, Justine and Juliette, assist him in the debate, but question where Sade’s philosophy of freedom leads when expressed fully.

Sade, whose name inspired the term “sadism,” was imprisoned in pre-revolutionary France as much for his atheism as for his cruelty. Modern historians and philosophers have been re-appraising Sade’s wicked reputation, asserting his role as a philosopher whose worldly views were ahead of his time with regard to assertion of the self and the will to power. A warning from the author: the images are erotic, but Sade’s philosophy is poisonous, so beware, innocent eyes, lest you fall into damnation!!

“Bastille Dreams” explores the conflict of freedom and ethics in an erotic fantasy of a night in the Bastille with the Marquis de Sade.

In "Bastille Dreams," Sade is visited in his Bastille cell by Simone de Beauvoir and Jack the Ripper, who question him about the limits of man's freedom. Sade's companions and sister muses, Justine and Juliette, assist him in the debate, but question where Sade’s philosophy of freedom leads when expressed fully.

Sade, whose name inspired the term “sadism,” was imprisoned in pre-revolutionary France as much for his atheism as for his cruelty. Modern historians and philosophers have been re-appraising Sade’s wicked reputation, asserting his role as a philosopher whose worldly views were ahead of his time with regard to assertion of the self and the will to power. A warning from the author: the images are erotic, but Sade’s philosophy is poisonous, so beware, innocent eyes, lest you fall into damnation!!

Thursday, February 14, 2008

I am a barber and a butcher of bitchesI do my work in the East End slumI'm a ripper, I amAnd I love my work like a slaughtermanI am the Devil, himself?I know that I amAnd they'll never, ever catch me.

In a dark and dirty alleyI murdered Mary AnnI cut her throat and drank the bloodLighthearted, that I am!

In a ratty hell-hole,I butchered Mary JaneI lopped off both her earsGood as any doctor can.

Outside a gin house was whereI met with CatherineWith a thin-bladed knifeI laid her body out andStrung her entrailsLike bloody ropes about the bedCut out some kidney,Made some my dinner, sent the restTo the bosses of WhitechapelLet them catch me if they can!SADEI have a respect for tastes, for fancies. However baroque the may be, I find them worthy of respect.RENEEYet to kill the object of one's desire is to discover oneself quite alone in a room with red hands and a mannequin, split open stem to stern, doll parts and sticky wet ropes scattered to bits about the room. It is a magic trick you play upon yourself. The rabbit disappears into the hat, incapable of return.ANNEWe are not the masters of our passions!SADEEven the most extraordinary and bizarre of tastes can, under analysis, be seen to have its origin in a principle of sensitivity.....